February 2009 Archives

 There isn't a New Yorker among us who hasn't found himself walking the city streets, dying for a drink of water, but imagine the plight of tourists who have no idea how safe our city's tap water is, or where to get it! Their desperation ends - often like ours - in a beeline to the nearest deli, where for a buck and a half nirvana is downed in three cool gulps from yet another plastic bottle. The fact is bottled water suppliers and the city's DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) are subject to similar standards, making one product about as safe as the other. And while there's many things New Yorkers take pride in, few of us realize we've got the best tasting water in the state (this according to official taste tests conducted at the State Fair in Syracuse last summer!)

Still, it must as come as no surprise that NYC has the largest engineered water system in the country. If you want to get an idea of what this actually means, check out Wikipedia  for highlights, or better yet visit the Queen's Museum of Art where there's a giant relief map of the system on display.  With over 800 water stations built throughout the boroughs to regularly test our water,  one can't help fantasizing that these above ground sites might one day be converted into filling stations for free drinking water ("Give me your tired, your poor, your thirsty"...?). Until then, D-I-Y'ers like TapIt prove that resourcefulness is all any New Yorker  - or savvy tourist, for that matter! - really needs to get herself a tall drink of water (if only men were that easy!)

Hope Deli at the intersection of Havemeyer and Hope in Williamsburg, Brooklyn signed on as a TapIt Partner.  They are the first business with a TapIt sticker in their window.  Look at that, bigger than Mastercard!

(103 Havemeyer Street)

Whenever I’m at the gym (okay, the “Y”), and i want to get a sip of water at the drinkng fountain, there’s always some sweaty, testoterone-y guy from the weight room hogging it up to fill his water bottle. Is this bad etiquette?, I wonder. Or is it actually a good thing since he’s not adding to the mounds of plastic wasting away for eternity in the giant dumps i imagine all looking - and stinking! - like the one on Staten Island? I’m not sure anymore. I was raised to think one shouldn’t abuse the privelege of public amenities, but maybe we just need more of them. More drinking fountains and public restrooms, I say!

Atlas Cafe became the first Brooklyn TapIt partner today!  Refill your bottle using the cooler of filtered water on the condiment stand.  Atlas also partners with greenopia.  Co-owner Luca Tesconi, who hails from Italy, eagerly joined the TapIt network.  Thanks Luca!

(116 Havemeyer Street, Brooklyn)

Its hard to believe in this day and age that urbanistas are shy about anything, but apparently asking for tap water at fancy restaurants is still a social taboo. Britain’s National Consumer Council did a study last November revealing this reluctance, and the role of restaurants in fostering it. What’d they find? That “9 out of every 10 restaurants [push] consumers to buy bottled water and fail to offer them free tap water.” Money, money, moneeeey (cue the theme song for the Apprentice) because that’s always the bottom line, right?

Yup. According to restaurant consultant Clark Wolf, if you extrapolate from the amount of water the restaurant industry buys, it takes in at least $200 million to $350 million in profit per year. That’s a lot of tostados, yo. Clearly pushing water on diners is a cost effective offense. And let’s face it, no one likes to feel cheap in a nice restaurant: “Um, you want tap? ohh, okay...” The shame has even worked on me, and I’m immune to waiter-intimidation (having waitered myself). Still, testimonials on www.foodandwaterwatch.org suggest the tide may be shifting as many restaurant owners realize there are other profits to consider. Mark Pastore of San Francisco’s Incanta - one of the first upscale eatteries to open without a water menu - sums up this win-win approach: “Offering our guests complimentary filtered San Francisco water with their meal combines the best of generous hospitality, care for our surroundings, and authentic local flavor. What we sacrifice in profits by not selling bottled water, we more than make up in increased goodwill with our guests.”

In Pastore’s view, putting consumers and the environment first doesn't undermine business, it enhances it. As a quasi-foodie, I like this perspective. After all, a restaurant's reputation rests on its culinary integrity (and of course, its chef!), so why not flaunt the good taste of tap? Maybe if we all get a little thicker-skinned in the face of bottled-water snobbery, more establishments (say, five out of ten, to start modestly!) will get with the program, and let the tap flow!

Bite

211 East 14^th Street

(Ask to refill your bottle at the counter)

Heartie Look (outreach and volunteer coordinator for the Hudson Riverkeeper) is seeking volunteers for tap water v. bottled water taste tests in Whole Foods stores next week. If you are interested in volunteering, please call her at 914-418-4501 ext. 252 or email her at hlook@riverkeeper.org

Times are as follows.

DAYTIME Monday, February 23rd 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Whole Foods- Tribeca
270 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10007

EVENING Monday, February 23rd 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m
Whole Foods- White Plains, NY
110 Bloomingdale Rd
White Plains, NY 10605

DAYTIME Tuesday, February 24th 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Whole Foods- Chelsea
250 7th Ave
New York, NY 10001

EVENING Thursday, February 26th 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Whole Foods- Columbus Circle
10 Columbus Circle, Ste SC101
New York, NY 10019

EVENING Friday, February 27th 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Whole Foods- Bowery
Bowery Culinary Center
95 East Houston St
New York, NY 10002

Find out more about Hudson Riverkeeper

Local
144 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012

(ask to refill your bottle at the counter)

I was going through my usual routine today, checking out all kinds of water news (doesn't everyone start their day this way?) and clicked on something that had been staring me in the face for a month.  A link to a Packaging Digest article about the USDA choosing a bottled water brand for the food service locations at its national headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Now you can understand me glossing over Packaging Digest.  Just thinking about an online magazine devoted to the packaging industry brings to mind episodes of the TV show, The Office (the British version).  Anyway, the folks at Packaging Digest appear to be very proud that the USDA chose Green Bottle Spring Water, for its food service locations because the water is packaged in plastic bottles made from corn and not oil.  This nod at sustainability while promoting the single serve packaging of water couldn't be more tone deaf.

Call me crazy, but I remember from the last time I was in D.C, that most of the buildings I was in had plenty of public water fountains from which people could drink (or even fill a bottle if they wanted to carry it with them).  And, having worked in a number of office buildings myself, I recall that most are equipped with staff rooms which include faucets, sinks and refrigerators - you know, the kind of amenities that staff need if they're stuck in a cubicle all day. 

Packaging Digest, wake up!  You're missing the point!  It's not about whether the plastic is made from corn or oil.  It's about endless bottles being made to package a product that comes out of a faucet.  It's about the excessive extraction of water from an ecosystem that needs it.  It's about the energy used to bottle, package and transport an unnecessary product contributing to climate change.  It's about government workers and their clients opting out of a public water supply as if they are somehow exempt from responsible ecological standards.  I wonder, do they realize they cancel out their corn bottles with the manufacturing, packaging and transportation process? 

Does it seem ironic to anyone else that Naturally Iowa, the maker of this 'green bottle,' extracts its spring water from an aquifer '600 feet beneath an organic farm near Alton, Virginia,' trucks it to Iowa for bottling and then ships the full bottles to D.C. for consumption.  It hurts my head just thinking about it.  You think the USDA would be the one government agency sensitive to the public water system, given how much the agricultural sector relies on it to grow all those unsustainable crops that taxpayers subsidize west of the hundredth meridian.  

 It wasn't enough that I gave into my 'habit' of looking at celeb sites like Perez Hilton and Coolspotters today (shameful).  I had to check the 'spots' for bottled water.  Those photos always drive me f%$#en crazy.  Not enough to take an Ativan mind you, but enough to 'go lie in the quiet room' for 10 minutes of concentrated breathing.  What's with the constant toting of bottled water?

I want to smack Jennifer Aniston in the nose job.  Giving blondes a bum rap is apparently not enough for her.  In '07 she added tone deafness to her resume by shilling for Glaceau's Smartwater (an oxymoronic name to say the least) at a time when the bottled water backlash was hitting the mainstream.  Today I saw that Tom Brady has followed in her footsteps.  Is there nothing these people won't do for money. 

Over the last couple of weeks, the new administration has made an effort to teach the bankers of America that they're living in a new era.  The new era doesn't include $1400 trash baskets or 50 million dollar jets (at least not if you're taking taxpayer money) and the bankers seem to finally get it.  I wonder, if Hollywood had gotten its bailout, would celebrities have to start behaving a little more like they get it?  All I can say is, thank God for Kevin Bacon!

In a recent post, I talked about the book ‘Culture’s Consequences’, which identifies the cultural values of 70 countries and puts them into five categories.  In this post I want to talk about one of those categories, individualism, which is defined as the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups.  The United States has the highest individualism rating of any country in the world.  Our loose ties to one another promote self reliance and looking after ourselves (and our immediate family) first. 

Bottled water is an individualist’s dream.  By toting it, we show others how well we’re looking after ourselves (hey, we didn’t choose soda.)  And, what better way to demonstrate self reliance than by having a life sustaining resource at our fingertips all the time. Even a hummer doesn’t come close!  But our individualist obsession with single serve products like bottled water may be one reason why we find ourselves living in communities littered with plastic bottles, overflowing landfills and water wars.   

Cultural change doesn’t just happen.  Even if it did, would we want to change?  Our ancestors fought too hard to define the US as a nation of free thinkers and doers and it’s what makes us great.  But our focus on looking after ourselves first means that sometimes we fail to see the problems we cause for ourselves as a collective.  We crack open that bottle of water thinking, what harm can one person do?  We don’t see the millions standing behind us doing exactly the same thing. 

Can we create a new spirit of community to overcome some of these problems?  Can we use our current economic situation to our advantage?  I’m not talking about giving up our individualist strengths.  But can we, through our loose ties to one another and our self reliant spirit, generate ideas, add new technology and develop solutions to some of our collective problems?  TapIt!